Tenderbreak Permaculture Farm, is located in Dixons Creek (65km NE of Melbourne,Australia). Andrew & Heather have almost completed their mud brick home, and are establishing 3 acres of food production gardens. They also run Permaculture in Action tours on the property. The aim of this blog is to tell their story, with particular emphasis on how permaculture principles have assisted them in this project.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

An International Christmas with Ortzi, Bryant & Olivia

Ortzi &Andrew replacing the hothouse plastic cover with shadecloth

Ortzi
came to Australia from the Basque region of Spain as part of a study trip to
investigate sustainable developments in Australia and New Zealand. He managed
to include quite a number of interviews and visits into his short trip, including
a few days at Tenderbreak. He has been teaching at a university at home and
gained a small grant to fund the trip, so only had a limited amount of time to
complete his research, which he intends to publish when he returns home.﻿

Ortzi, Bryant and Olivia fetching our Christmas tree

Ortzi was a ball of energy and worked so fast and
efficiently that sometimes we had trouble keeping up with him. Within a day we
had cleared the over- grown sides of much of our long driveway- a job that would
have taken us a week to do alone.

Ortzi & Liss decorating the tree

A
few days after he arrived here, two other helpers also joined us. Bryant and Olivia
are originally from Florida, US, but have been living and working in New
Zealand and were also interested in sustainable lifestyles.

We all shared similar interests and passions
and within a short time we had developed a close friendship. Everyone was
blessed with a good sense of humour and our discussions and tales of the past were
filled with plenty of fun and laughter. Ortzi, Bryant and Olivia enjoyed their
time together so much that they have arranged to meet up again in New Zealand
to catch up on their respective adventures.

﻿

Liss, Sal & Ortzi preparing the feast

As
their visit coincided with Christmas it was a very international affair for us
this year. Our celebration actually started on Christmas Eve when we had a Christmas
Eve supper supplied by our son Greg. It was a great evening of conversation,
laughter and good cheer and continued well into the evening. Then it was all
hands on board early on Christmas morning, to get ready for lunch. We had a
total of 16 family and helpers coming for Christmas lunch so there was plenty
to do. Ortzi, Bryant and Olivia helped shift the furniture, arranged a series
of tables into a super long table, set up and decorated our very Australian Christmas
tree (a young eucalypt sapling) and helped Heather prepare the food.

﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

Enjoying Christmas dinner

After
our sumptuous meal and a leisurely afternoon, we took Ortzi to the local
station so he could travel to the airport to catch his late night plane to NZ
for the final leg of his research trip. We continued on for a family gathering
and more food, drink and conversation at Andrew’s brother’s place. The next
morning we all had a much needed sleep in and then enjoyed a restful Boxing
Day.